mtz
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Posts posted by mtz
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6 hours ago, Havana said:Whether are not you want to addess this or not, this is a fact.
Here's a fun piece of information: saying something is a fact more often than not makes people more suspicious of what you're saying.
6 hours ago, Havana said:There are soo many tryhard 8year plus vets that KNOW the names of nearly every mission stage.,
They know where they should be before you complete your current objective.
No. Knowing the objectives in a mission does not give you the knowledge of where the objectives will actually be located in advance. This should be fairly obvious from just playing the game.
6 hours ago, Havana said:LO also stated the released 50 unused missions. UMMMM OK , I Don't see it. I could be wrong or if is.... Its so slight in difference its pointless.
IIRC mathematically speaking, it's 25 missions for Crims and 25 for Enforcers. Considering that each contact already has a pool of missions they can give out, with those 25 missions appended to various contacts, it's a given that you may not see all of these missions right away.
6 hours ago, Havana said:The missions themselves needs to be remixed and re evaluated and renamed.
Remixed and reevaluated? Decent idea, actually. I think there are some missions in the game which could use an overhaul.
Renamed? There's no real change this would bring about — and given the existence of localization configs which directly display mission objectives (because mission descriptions are replaced by just the objective list), the "issue" would still be there. Hell, if memory serves me right, LO has expressed interest of integrating "simplified" interface elements like those localization configs.
6 hours ago, Havana said:Please stop listenening to ONLY the top tier dudes, THEY DO NOT SPEND MONEY, THEY RUN OFF PLAYERS and are egostical messes.
Targeting specific groups within the playerbase is a great way of alienating support of your ideas. Not to mention, all groups and skill levels should be taken into account. Not just lower threat players, not just highest threat players — we either listen to everyone who speaks up, or we don't listen to anyone at all.
6 hours ago, Havana said:The Forums are just as bad, FLAME on as you always do. I said the truth and I will not FOLLOW up on it because TOXICITY is ALL the forums are about.
Everytime I Post it, It is with only with good intentions in HEART for the pursuit of the game, but is 110% met with Toxicity.
Disagreement is not automatically toxicity. Saying that you're "speaking the truth" doesn't automatically make your words the undeniable truth or anything like that.
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I can see inspiration here from some of the Call of Duty games which have had character perks that allowed the player to substitute their secondary with a primary, with (if I remember correctly) only a part of the second primary's ammo capacity.
The way I see APB's gameplay loop work, a primary is your main "role" in the team, while a secondary is a weapon that lets you cover up the niches your primary underperforms in. If you are interested in a secondary OBIR, the RFP-9 is your best bet (though that's a bit of a stretch). If your primary is a shotgun, you can make yourself a bit more viable at long ranges with an ACT 44. Honorable mention is the FBW, which does just fine at all ranges sans long, where it will flat out lose to the likes of the N-HVR.
APB is not supposed to be a game where you turn yourself into a one man army. You take specific primary weapons with the knowledge that you will not be 100% effective at certain ranges, leaving you to rely on other members of your team.
Even if we were to consider adding such a character mod to the game, I don't think the penalties you proposed are deep enough to offset the sheer power the player gets from having two primary options at their disposal. Plus, which colour would it even occupy? Blue or green?
It's nice to see people still come up with ideas for this game, but about this one... I respectfully disagree.
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40 minutes ago, Todesklinge said:Most of peoples are disagree me, because they know they will lose there unfair bonuses from the item.
No, most people disagree with you because your approach to balancing has historically included ideas such as making the N-HVR a one-hit-kill, making changes based on calculations which only account for individual cases and ruin the balance of things outside of those individual cases, straight up complete removal of a specific type of grenades (conveniently, the ones you don't use) or nerfing OCA Nano because you can't land your shots against it with a 'Bloody Mary'.
This topic that you're trying to discuss in this forum thread, we've gone over this already, almost literally a year ago - hell, I had already made the exact same points back then... you simply refused to acknowledge them. I hate to be breaking it to you, but changes are not made by pestering people with the same flawed logic over and over until they relent and give in.
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Just out of curiosity - do you ever consider the possibility that if everyone around you keeps disagreeing with you, it's not everyone around you who's wrong?
I've lost count of how many threads you've created about this specific topic, and every single time people tell you that no, Clotting Agent is not overpowered - it's you who's gimping themself by opting to use Kevlar Implants 3.
Once again, from the top (not that I expect you to actually take any of this into consideration; if several threads later you're still holding the same opinion, you won't change it no matter how much time someone spends on explaining this to you):
- CA3 is meta for a reason - its health regen delay decrease lets the user dive back into combat earlier than if they were to sit for the default 8 seconds before their health starts regenerating. The actual delay takes more time, but sometimes regenerating just a small part of the lost health allows the player to resume combat.
- KI3 is out of the meta because it's a decrease to player speed in a game largely based around mobility. Its health benefit is not meant to let you tank three SHAW mags - it's meant to be a slight edge for specific situations. You get slightly more health, but the cost of it is that you move slower to the point where other players could literally run circles around you. I'd risk saying that it's Kevlar that's underpowered, not Clotting Agent that's overpowered.
Have you considered evaluating why you keep losing fights to other players? Have you ever considered that it's not other people's equipment that is at fault, but your playstyle? You're describing to us that you can't kill people with a single shotgun pump and a percussion grenade anymore, which really only makes me think that you expect to be some sort of an unstoppable force capable of just moving forward and effortlessly killing everyone while they deal scratch damage - in which case I can only recommend that you play a singleplayer FPS game with an invincibility cheat. Those are more adjusted to letting players stomp enemies.
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9 minutes ago, PACwoMAN said:Of course I saw those topics about the engine upgrade, but...
The devs are really didn’t realise that they are just doing a wrong job?
This outdated engine will not change anything.
Upgrading the engine that APB runs on will allow LO to add more content to the game in the future.
8 minutes ago, PACwoMAN said:This new engine will change gameplay? No.
What should be? - new content.
The engine upgrade serves partially to allow for adding more content to the game instead of slapping more meatballs on the spaghetti code that is APB.
9 minutes ago, PACwoMAN said:Can’t they just draw a few maps and add some missions and contacts?
No, because the codebase is a mess and the engine upgrade is meant to fix that, among other things.
QuoteMartin, you basically just said the same thing about how the engine upgrade will allow for content creation three times in the same post.
Four, if you count this made up quote.
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37 minutes ago, Motorola said:wait so they removed items you paid g1c for and didnt refund the g1c? or what?
18 hours ago, MattScott said:Anyone who previously purchased it can keep them. We aren't removing them from inventory - just not selling them any more.
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3 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:The showstopper is the most original weapons we had since they took over, the content i talk about is the likes of the Cap 40-C NFCP 2, and the VBR 'Tempress', CSG-20 'Golden' and alot of weapons and skins, this is already in the game and owned by a few players that played at a given time, and it should stay that way and be exclusive to the people who already own them, they should respect the Veterans of this game and make them feel exclusive because they played for long enough to have it all, when you take that away from old players they just have enough and they quit the game, i know someone who raked up 237k joker tickets before you could buy them in armas, when i first heard about that it will be available to buy from armas i immediately though of that player and fk me that guy just did it all for nothing.
Nothing is better than stomping on the old timers apparently.
I've been in this game since 2012 and I certainly don't feel stomped on when content becomes more accessible. My only advice is to try and have a less elitist/exclusionary attitude.
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12 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:this game should never been politicized
...I'm actually surprised you've managed to spend over 7k hours in this game and through all of that time never once did it occur to you that for all of its existence its world had been one massive "what if" political scenario revolving around legalizing vigilantism and the natural consequences thereof.
18 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:The Crown was originally exclusive to people who could rake up 30k joker tickets, which would've given them some kind of high standard among other players, ruining its exclusivity is terrible,
This is the same trail of reasoning as "I can divert the trolley at any time and prevent it from running over those people tied to the tracks, but that would be unfair to the people that the trolley had already run over".
20 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:this "content" you talk about was previously in the game and it doesn't count as new content, as it count as an exclusive content only a small margin of players have,
Alright then, quick question: exactly how many players in the live branch had used the 'New Glory', the Showstopper (both the regular variant and 'Thunder') and the 'Corsair' before their official releases?
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1 minute ago, ReaperTheButcher said:ruining the Crown exclusivity is maybe good for you, those contests you talk about is just a plaster because they haven't give use a real content since they took over, they take feedback from the silvers in the community, maybe the customer support works great i didn't need them, 3 "new" legendaries which most of them was already in the game/files eg, Ntec compact and the NL-9, free premium is nice, i wonder how they still manage to have profit from the game at this stage.
So, respectively:
- you think making customization items more accessible is bad
- you think you're an authority of what counts and doesn't count as content
- you think specific groups of players are not allowed to have an opinion
- you think improvements in fields you don't use don't count as improvements
- you think content previously not available to players doesn't count as new content
5 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:So why do this bring up the community attention 3 weeks before the USA elections ? i don't think it is a smart move from them.
I ask again: Why are you and like two other people (to the surprise of no one, it's the same people who always complain about everything again) only being outraged about it now and only bringing it up now instead of two years ago?
4 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:And why did they silently removed the mask from further sales ? why didn't they let us know about it back then, was they afraid at backlash ?
The sole fact that it took two years for someone to even notice the removal and care about it enough to bring it up here shows just how important that item really was.
Hell, it still isn't important, seeing as it's getting brought up just for stupid made-up controversy.
Though to think that all it took to absolutely detonate some fragile little things on this forum was to remove a likeness of their idol from a game... absolutely priceless.
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35 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:@MartinPL who are you ?
Oh I'm so sorry, I must have skipped the introductory course where we got told that we're only allowed to speak up if we're popular enough.
36 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:you have no point in defending them
That isn't really for you to decide though, is it?
36 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:they are wrong at everything they do
Between overhauling Armas, overhauling the Joker Store, overhauling the legendary weapons system, giving us official events such as the Joker Employee Contest, letting GMs help out in community events such as the recent Community Events Team tournament, letting the community feedback influence further balance changes, having customer support blow through a mountain of tickets and finally respond at reasonable times, getting rid of Joker Mystery Boxes, giving us three new legendaries to mess around with, lowering orange mod cooldowns for everyone regardless of whether they have Premium or not, running a free Premium period throughout the pandemic period... yeah, I don't think I agree, bud.
43 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:and that's why we are here, to critic them and i like it.
I would love for you to tell me how bringing up the removal of a politically charged item (created by people who no longer run the game) from sale two years after the item's delisting from sale counts in your head as "constructive criticism".
46 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:Oh and try to not lick someone's glory hole more then you do now, you already do a great job at it so don't over do it.
I think that if you had said "everyone who disagrees with me is a stupid doodoohead" instead of this last sentence and the image you added in with post editing, you still would've looked a bit more mature than this.
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5 minutes ago, ReaperTheButcher said:Hello, i think and speculate that the people at little Orbit has something against a certain political candidate somewhere 2-3 weeks before a certain elections in a certain country, is it just me ? share your thoughts.
49 minutes ago, Kevkof said:We get it you're upset about everything.
The item was removed more than 2 years ago at this point, calm the f*** down.
Hello, i think and speculate that a certain few people on certain forums somewhere have something against a certain company somewhere (which is responsible for a certain game) for some reason, is it just me ? share your thoughts.
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7 hours ago, Havana said:We are to here to play a game.
Exactly which part of playing APB requires you to wear a mask of that specific person?
7 hours ago, Havana said:I find it EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE that the Mask OF the President of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA has been removed.
Where were you when Obama didn't get his mask? I certainly did not see you complaining about a lack of his mask during his presidency. Surely if you want POTUS representation in customization, you should be equally rooting for all options.
7 hours ago, Havana said:This Game SHOULD NOT BE POLTICAL but YOU made it that way!
Get BACKBone AND stop this insanity, You are wrong on ALL accounts.
There is NO discussion that needs to follow, YOU are wrong for doing this.
And , it shows your weakness.
"This game should not be political"? Do you realize what game we're talking about?
APB is placed in an alternate reality where a city-state enacts a controversial act that allows anyone to act as an officer of law, with no prior training required. The federal government and the entire world, instead of acting upon it, decides to simply sit back and observe how the situation develops.
What follows is: San Paro is a literal hellhole where civilians get run over by both Crim-owned and Enforcer-owned cars on the daily, corporations and criminal organizations practically run the city. Gameplay-wise there's very little difference between Enforcers and Criminals, as both perform very similar tasks. Lore-wise, the similarities only continue as both sides include organizations with corporate funding (Praetorians, G-Kings) and ragtag alliances with a dress code and a gung-ho approach to getting stuff to go their way (Prentiss Tigers, Blood Roses).
All of this game is a political statement. You should be able to realize things like this by yourself.
Realistically the only discussion that needs to follow here is whether APB should hold a required IQ check upon registering an account. Considering that the thread we're in is basically three people raising a stink about an item that has been long gone from the game (making it fairly obvious that they only really care about causing trouble to the developers), I reckon a fair chunk of the playerbase would fail that check two questions in (after getting a lucky guess on the first one).
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Kinda pains me that no one else submitted in this category. Thought I'd chime in so it's not entirely empty! (Just, you know, filled by a subpar entry :^) )
QuoteThe Abington Towers Mental Asylum has always been a hellhole. The contemporary San Parite may recognize it as "that one island with a ruined hospital where all the Crims and scene kids go to rave". However, the place has a very long and tragic history, one which a lot of people would rather forget... but if you were unfortunate enough to have seen it firsthand, the misery of the Asylum will have burned into your retinas. One such person was an employee under the name of Oliver Osbourne.
Those more acquainted with the Asylum's history will recall the tragic incident that resulted in its ultimate closure: a mishandling of warfare equipment led to a large-scale chain of explosions, which ended up killing several patients and personnel of Abington Towers. As soon as the tragedy started, sending body parts flying, leaving fragmented corpses behind, no one could look away — especially not Oliver, one of the few doctors stationed in the institute who actually cared about their patients. Some of those men and women killed in the explosions, they were meant to be under Oliver's care. Some of them had hopes of successfully reintegrating into society, though no one can be quite sure if that was them or their mental conditioning doing the talking. Their mental state didn't matter then, though. In these circumstances, why would it? They were all dying from blood loss — or if they were "lucky" enough, already dead and past their misery.
As Oliver stood by the window, looking outward on the Dantesque imagery before his eyes, he felt like he had personally failed these people. He had spent so much time working with them. Each one of them was a unique human being, with their own story to tell. They all could have had a bright future ahead of them... and all of it was extinguished in a stupid accident. Perhaps Oliver could have done something to prevent it. Perhaps he could have convinced the management to employ more suitable patients or employees to carry the munitions. He should have been there with those people. He should have run to the exit and towards the wharf, hopefully saving at least one of them from bleeding out. But instead, he stood motionless, staring in disbelief at what had just transpired. Was it because he was mortified at the casualties? Or was it because he was horrified at the sight of one of his patients lying on the ground, missing a leg and crying in pain?
Between him and the massacre stood the retina of his eye. The sight had been burned into his mind. It would never leave. Things like those never do.
In the havoc resulting from the tragedy, no one could quite find their bearings. In a grim coincidence, it turned out that the casualties included most of the patients assigned to doctor Oliver Osbourne — who himself had also mysteriously vanished. Those who survived the events through whatever circumstances, whether it was because of swift medical aid or simple luck in hiding from the explosions, have experienced severe mental trauma. However, all of the inhabitants of the Asylum, even those not present at the wharf, cited a constant feeling of unease after the event — as if they were being stalked or constantly observed by someone. Some of them spoke of having outright seen a strange figure with a giant eyeball for a head looking at them from a distance, often from places normally considered impossible to reach.
These confessions quickly spread beyond Asylum walls into the mainland San Paro and gave birth to the myth of the Oculus: a supernatural being whose head is a giant eyeball. In the most famous version of the urban legend, he is Oliver Osbourne himself, who refused eternal rest and chose to return to San Paro as penance for his inaction and inability to prevent what had happened all those years ago in Abington Towers. He chose the role of a harbinger of bad fate, staring at those who have the power to change it, as allegedly, beyond all else the Oculus hates passive onlookers. If you see injustice happening in any shape or form, don't just stand there. Act upon it. Do something. Take initiative. You are wrong if you think no one will see you just turning a blind eye and moving on — because a certain eye definitely won't go blind for you.
No one is quite sure what happened to Oliver Osbourne after the wartime supply incident in Abington Towers, and his transformation into the Oculus has become a part of San Paro's street lore; an urban legend of sorts, or a prank especially prominent around Halloween, when trick-or-treaters repurpose headpieces of their costumes into giant eyes. Many people don't think the origin story of the Oculus is anything but a scary tale meant to educate the San Parian youth on morals and discourage them from going to parties in the Asylum — but even the most skeptic ones sometimes joke about feeling watched...
Like I've hinted at in the main thread, this is mostly a resubmission of what I've already created in the past, with some minor tweaks here and there. This rendition of the Oculus screams "edgy", as you may be able to tell by the increased amount of veins on the... head... eye?... the, uh... yeah... and the red iris instead of a blue one (though I still do have the "blue iris, less veins" version too). The backstory also saw minor tweaks (and the name isn't a terrible in-your-face pun anymore).
I wasn't sure if supernatural entries were alright, but I assumed they are since we do have Trick and Treat in the game, so yeah, I thought I'd come up with another "urban legend"-type character. The character's "meant" to be called as he is called in the backstory - the Oculus - but if trademarks get in the way, a rebrand is always possible. Y'know, something like Ocular, Watcher, Seeing Eye, Surveyor, anything goes I think.
One fun thing I've noticed is that somehow (by sheer accident; I was not going for that effect) I've managed to place the pupil of the symbol in the exact spot where the Dog-Ear's scope goes in the aiming animation.
Character name is Martinz, server is Citadel (EU).
So yeah, that's my submission in this category!
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Any rules against resubmitting past content? As in, made before this contest/event specifically.
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9 minutes ago, Zolerox said:I don't see anything wrong with it
Where does it say "50^ faster mod cooldown" ?
The descriptions have already been fixed not to include that perk anymore - so the thread has run its course.
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All of these pages mention the removed "50% faster orange mod cooldowns" perk of Premium. Might be a good idea to remove that since nowadays everyone has these "faster" cooldowns by default.
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These are Baggy Jeans, which are currently only available from the Armas Marketplace.
There are a few ways to obtain them:
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by purchasing the Street RX Outfit pack for 476 G1C (or 381 G1C with the Premium discount).
This will give you the Baggy Jeans for the character you log into Armas with. (Pack contents will vary depending on the gender of your character.)
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by purchasing the Urban RX Bundle for 3,084 G1C (or 2,467 G1C with the Premium discount).
Click this --> Enforcer Urban RX Bundle <-- to see the store page for Enforcer characters.
Click this --> Criminal Urban RX Bundle <-- to see the store page for Criminal characters.
This will give you the same clothing items as the previous option, but will also include a 4-slot Charge Mikro with cosmetic kits, and the ISSR-B "Wisp" sniper rifle, permanent for the character you buy the bundle for. (Pack contents will vary depending on the gender and the faction of your character.)
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by purchasing the Key to the World bundle for 15,999 G1C (or 12,799 G1C with the Premium discount).
While this is hands down the most expensive option on the table, this bundle will give you exclusive 3D Glasses, three guns, two cars with cosmetic kits, two clothing packs (Street RX Outfit included), all Country Flag weapon skins and the Gold weapon skin — all of it account-bound; you will always have these items on every single character on your account, including the characters you haven't even created yet.
If you only have one character and you only want the pants, I'd say the first option is the cheapest and the best.
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by purchasing the Street RX Outfit pack for 476 G1C (or 381 G1C with the Premium discount).
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36 minutes ago, AlishaHutt said:So what's the point on making this topic?
Yes.. asking about loved clothes and accessories.. and?
You can see that by checking the database of the game, which character wear some specific things etc..
Most of the games have this type of methods to find which player have tot. items and which don't.
I mean.. if you wanted to make a surprise patch or some announcements, just do it without the playerbase to know about it.
You could look at raw stats and get no causal information out of it... or you could ask people - actual real human beings - directly and find out what they like and sometimes why they like those things. Tends to be a bit more illustrative... and it gives a better idea of what people might like. I reckon it would help with adding future content, since LO will have things to work off of.
Plus, it's fun to talk about things you like about the game for a change. APB's community tends to be really negative, so talking about positive stuff feels... refreshing? in a weird way.
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Can't believe I hadn't added this earlier, but... Desert Scarf. Not the mask variant. I can never come up with any intricate designs to put on it (since all the folds make symbols look odd to me) but Goddamn does it look very good even when it's only recoloured. I've got a male character whose outfits include one with a black Baseball Cap, a gray Desert Scarf and a white Ringer T (which is still one of the best clothing items in the game, fite me) and I have to say I really dig the look.
There's also plenty of fun designs you can put on Over-the-knee Socks — though we could really use legwear of other lengths and of more types than the ones we currently have in the game. So yeah, OTK Socks all the way.
Might be worth it to also mention that I like Tactical Trousers. They're like Combats but even better. Cargo Capri Shorts are also pretty decent-looking options for bottomwear — the only real complaint I have about them are the weird sunglasses tucked into their waistband or pocket or whatever it was.
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I'll admit, I'm definitely guilty of using High-Top Shoes in most of my outfits. They look heckin' good, what can I say.
Skate High-Tops look pretty alright too, but I've always found it kinda weird how their model actually makes your character's feet shorter; other shoes don't do that.
My outfits across both genders in the game more often than not include the Ringer T, though recently I've been using long-sleeved tops on my female characters - so the good ol' Long-sleeved Shirt, Hockey Jersey, or the Turtleneck. The only thing I dislike about the Turtleneck is that wooly texture/shadowmap/whatever you're supposed to call that. The Turtleneck Minidress doesn't have that, but you'd probably sooner catch my characters dead than wearing that overly short mess of a clothing item. (Seriously, the "Nouvelle Chinoise" preset clothing set for female Enforcers suffers greatly because it's pretty much just the Turtleneck Minidress and Flower Stockings, and having the stocking tops (garters?) be plainly visible on an outfit is really tacky.)
Since we're at the topic of clothing — I'm actually not a fan of too many Armas items, personally speaking. The notable exceptions are the aforementioned High-Top Shoes and the Hockey Jersey — mostly because they're a bit more versatile. It really feels like a lot of the clothing items on Armas flat out don't work with anything else. The Long-sleeved Shirt from the base game is great and fun to use because you can wear it under a Ringer T, tuck it into your pants or skirt, and because it's mostly skintight you can even fake the skin colour on it and have your own "custom" sleeve length... but the Nylon Flight Jacket from some pack on Armas? I've never seen anyone wear it with anything else or customize it visibly.
I'd love to see more "plain" and customizable clothing in the future. Flashy and intricate things with lots of parts are cool and all, but they don't work too well as canvas for customizing.
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After a whole bunch of brainstorming, creative writing, trying to come up with a design that's not too flashy and not too bland at the same time... eh, it's worth a shot. I wouldn't exactly call myself a visual artist, and it probably shows.
Introducing:
Sayaka Hayford
Biography: (Warning - it's pretty damn long.)
Sayaka Hayford is as native a San Parite as they come - if by San Paro nativity we understand living in such a poor financial state that you have to pick up street smarts in order to survive. Hailing from a family whose income only really allowed a frugal existence, some of her earliest memories involve helping in her parents' grocery store on the weekends just to save them some money on hiring help. Things persisted like this well into her university days, turning their store into a family business.
Though Sayaka's parents had put money aside towards their daughter's education, she quit university halfway through her Economics major. It's not that she was struggling - on the contrary, she was one of the better students in her year. The problem was that these students started to dwindle in numbers, be it from dropping out in favor of partying, or from disputes with the richer kids with guns getting escalated to the unfortunate conclusion... Sayaka wasn't really interested in becoming the next casualty. Plus, what knowledge she had already acquired, she felt it was enough to get by in life.
As time went on, the store's neighborhood started to see trouble with crime. The Hayfords' business itself, however, was mostly ignored by Crims. No one really dared to mess with the shop and attempts to vandalize the store or extort the owners would quickly be stopped by community members - sometimes even by other criminals who had previously made attempts themselves. They NEEDED that store - the only one in the area that wasn't out of business yet - to function. Something about not biting the hand that feeds you. Plus, the Hayfords have always had that kid in the store, hanging around. You've seen that youngster scan your items and help out with a smile, no matter what you looked or dressed like - what kind of a monster would you have to be to hold her at gunpoint?
The kid was long gone, replaced years ago with a young adult who had inherited the store and grown increasingly sceptic towards the whole gang trend - and just as Sayaka's optimism dwindled, so did her immunity from those self-appointed street prosecutors. The introduction of the City Security Act only served to embolden the troublemakers. You're either with them or against them - and this applied to both sides. Each one of these people considered themselves a defender of the city in their own special way; the real question was whether they'd try to extort co-operation from you with a badge or without one.
Little Miss Hayford had a different idea though. When the first CSA-inspired hotshot showed up in the store with intent to rob it, she sweet-talked him into a special deal between the two of them. "You get me a gun and I'll fill you in on some super secret intel from the neighborhood... and maybe offer some of the really fun stuff if I get my hands on any, at a discount." Only a fool would have rejected her offer. Information on the others goes a long way in this city... and those under-the-counter hunting sights, well, it certainly wouldn't hurt to have one. Only he wasn't the only one who got the offer.
Money quickly became a secondary currency in the Hayford family store, as other things became the real reasons to visit the store. Sayaka, having been gifted with a warm smile and enough persuasion to sway even someone pointing a gun at her head, started cutting deals with all of those wannabe kings. "Enrique, feel free to chill at my store as protection and you'll get all the food and drinks you want, on the house." "Tell me where you found these pills, Damien, and I'll get you blueprints for a gun barrel mod." "Ms. Wong, if you want this sight, I'll sell it at 80 percent of the market price, no questions asked." Deals varied in tangible value, but they offered what the client desired. Reliable source of weaponry? You got it. Financial stability? Yes sir. Lowest prices you can get without background checks? Hell yeah. Sense of belonging to an exclusive community? Absolutely.
Word of mouth spread very quickly. Everybody in the neighborhood knew that the Hayfords' daughter had become a black market broker. They didn't care much, though. In a weird way, by turning the shop into a hub for gun-wielding lunatics, the surrounding area saw a massive drop in crime. Sayaka Hayford had drawn very simple rules: everyone gets serviced, but if even one person starts shit in the area, we're not doing business. On short notice the local Enforcers and Criminals started keeping peace in the community beyond their allegiance. And if you had a problem with that kind of local hierarchy? Tough shit. Lay a finger on her and all that happens is you lose a source of information and great deals, and as a bonus you get all the guns in the area to aim at you for crossing the dealer that everyone does deals with.
Of course, it's all unsustainable in the long run. There's always a bigger fish, and it's only a matter of time before they decide that they want a piece of your little operation - or that they want it gone. And in San Paro, there's a whole bunch of fish you want to stay away from. The first to notice was the Joker Corporation, after a realization that a lot of their stock turns up on the black market with disassembled parts - almost as if people were taking them apart and using the pieces for something else. And to the surprise of their private investigators, a significant chunk of it traced back to a grocery store in an unusually quiet neighborhood a few minutes away from Virginia Gardens.
If someone's disrupting your way of making money, the traditional San Paro way of dealing with it is to make the disruption disappear... but Joker Corporation's HR and recruitment specialist Anna Partridge saw an opportunity in Sayaka Hayford. When you find someone with this much natural talent for selling things and getting people to do their bidding, you want them to work for you, not against you.
Sayaka had almost everything she needed, and Joker offered more still. Stable employment, security for her and her ailing parents, and a house in Virginia Gardens... all that Joker Corporation asks in return is for Sayaka to basically keep doing what she does best - sell things with a smile. No more black market stuff. Everything would be perfectly legal, with no risk of unsatisfied clients or having to worry about the quality of the merchandise. And, well... she felt that only a fool would have rejected this kind of an offer.
Of course, Sayaka knew that accepting the job meant leaving her neighborhood - and that only ever results in power vacuums... not to mention the fact that she didn't want to let her neighbors down and let the area relapse into crime. Nowadays, the Hayfords' old grocery store is run by Enrique Cortez, Sayaka's childhood friend. In a way, he completely took over her role in the local community as the linchpin in keeping Enforcers and Criminals in check, and since the two had always been close friends keeping together, the neighbors don't really mind or notice the change.
"Miss Hayford" still swings by the shop to chat with Enrique when she has the time, but these days you'll most likely see her selling merchandise of all kinds - not just guns - for Joker Corporation's distribution division, this time without the need to worry about maintenance of the goods she's offering. It's not aftermarket quality anymore - you're only getting the very best, straight off the factory line.
Now, dear customer... are you interested in any of our goods?===
Some things that I wanted to share or say "by the way":
- For the character I'm submitting, I chose a name that's different from the actual name of the character (lshiyama - the I at the start is a lowercase L). The name "Sayaka" is a nod to Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, an anime that I haven't even watched outside of clips that a friend of mine sent me (seriously, I suck at watching shows, animated or not. I don't watch anything :V ), but it also has a character with the same name whose life also largely revolves around money.
- I initially wanted to wing it with the character — as in, create an outfit and an appearance and maybe then write around that. My plan didn't work out, so I switched the order of operation and I started with the biography — which helped me with making tweaks to my existing character (since hey, she was already pretty much "there" if we're talking about the way I would imagine the character would look like).
- The biography was written as if the character was an actual contact in the Joker Store. I tried to make the character's description fit into APB stylistically and "organically", imitating the game's existing writing style as best as I could. (If the character doesn't actually score anything in the contest, then oh well, I guess it'll just be a piece of fan fiction :V )
- The "original" colour scheme I wanted to go with didn't really include any Joker colours; the shirt was monochrome and the trousers had an olive hue.
- The kneepads with faction logos copied from Ophelia, however tacky or overused they may be at this point, serve as a visual gag/representation of how the character has sold (and, if chosen to be a Joker Employee, will sell) items to both factions in San Paro.
- I tried to make the character stand out a bit, but not so much as to draw all the attention. The key idea was that this is a salesperson for a successful company in the city; they need a visually appealing uniform to stand out just enough in a crowd filled with... "eccentric" people ('cause let's face it, there are some "visually loud" characters and outfits out there) ...but not stand out too much.
- While designing the outfit I also tried to stay away from overusing the Joker logo. Speedball has the excuse of being a sportsman, so naturally he would have a visually popping outfit filled with colours and logos of his sponsors everywhere — Hayford is basically a local community dealer gone corporate. Not exactly a poster girl for advertisements, eh?
Best of luck to all the participants!
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So I'm thinking of participating, and the way I went about the creative process was to write a biography for my character first, and then try to create a character that would match the description of someone who had these life experiences. My assumption is that if someone provides a bio, it would be used in the game itself. (Unless I'm mistaken, that is.) If that's the case, then, uh... I may have ended up writing a biography that's 1254 words long. Is there a word/character limit on the descriptions? Should I get to cutting down some text or something? I'm pretty sure the text I've written exceeds the longest bios in the game (which, if memory serves me right, would belong to the Specialists).
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If you remember that those songs used to be in APB's default music library, you are entitled to a veteran's discount.
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41 minutes ago, isaac-the-dad said:1. The Contact progression becomes very slow from Tier 3 and on.
No real objections here from me. The progression really slows down after a certain point, but the difference in time spent levelling up each tier is massive. Tier 1 contacts can be done in one day, Tier 2 can take several days, Tier 3 turns into weeks and so on...
43 minutes ago, isaac-the-dad said:2. Missions pay really little money and buying a good car like Vegas with slots takes a lot of grind
There are several ways to earn money in this game besides through playing missions.
Fight Club is an almost mindless gamemode designed almost specifically for that; you walk forward and shoot people (and sometimes do objectives) to earn cash and Joker Tickets which you can turn into permanent gear by spending them in the Joker Distribution point in the Social District.
If you're more of a creative type, you can sell your things to other players on the Marketplace or through direct trading. Back when we didn't have a trading system, I would sell T-shirts to other players for 25k APB$ each. With the 20% tax on the Marketplace, it only took 5 sales for me to turn a profit of about 100k APB$.
45 minutes ago, isaac-the-dad said:3. There are no good guns available for purchase for in-game money, at least until I reach Tier 5 contacts. That means that guns are P2W.
I would just like to point out that this is not what "pay to win" means. P2W is an advantage which is unique to a paying player, but realistically unavailable to a non-paying player. The last such thing in the game was the difference in orange mod cooldowns — players with Premium had their mod cooldowns reduced by 50%. Once Little Orbit took over the game, the cooldowns have been unified across the board, so now everyone can use their mods equally often.
Gear availability is only partially limited to contact progression. Contacts mostly get you preset variants, which come with already installed mods, some of which may not even be things that you would want to use on a given gun. You can unlock slotted variants of weapons independent of rank progress, by levelling up Roles. You basically have to kill people with a weapon category to get open-slotted versions of weapons in that category.
If you're interested in skipping the role grind, you can always buy 3-slotted versions of guns on Armas. It's not paying to win, it's paying to skip the grind.
57 minutes ago, isaac-the-dad said:Is there some content, like a good car, that I am better off buying immediately because it's not going to be available via in-game currency, or because it takes 500h to unlock?
With some cosmetic exceptions, you can obtain most gameplay content — weapons, mods, vehicles — with in-game currencies. The obvious outlier would be the 4x4 Vegas, since its Joker Store price tag is pretty steep, and the car itself is currently considered a cornerstone of the meta.
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4 hours ago, 404 said:”good but could be nerfed” and “broken has no downsides” both kind of skate around the no mans land of “this gun is op”, with the former seeming to refer to meta weapons that are balanced but could recieve small tweaks without major performance impact and the latter not applying to any gun in apb at all imo
i think a lot of players might take “good but could be nerfed” as “nerf this gun” (which might be intended, could you clarify?), leading to them either applying it wrong or avoiding it altogether for fear of another nerf wave
there’s no option specifically for guns that need a rework, unless that was what “straight downgrade” was intended to be and i was using it incorrectly
The subject of available answers and their wording is one that I've tried to think about, but I couldn't come up with any better ones.
I personally see the answers as a scale between underperforming and outperforming other options in a weapon's category. If you want a more detailed interpretation of the answers and what I had in mind while choosing them, they are as follows:
[Unusable] Straight downgrade — The weapon is noticeably set back by some factor(s) due to which it's significantly outperformed by most alternatives within its category.
[Suboptimal] Good but could be buffed — On its own, the weapon is not bad, though it might lose in some situations compared to weapons that would normally serve the same purpose.
[Balanced] Fine as it is — The weapon has no greater issues that set it back or put it above other weapons. The legendary mod overall works as a sidegrade, not an upgrade or a downgrade.
[Excellent] Good but could be nerfed — The weapon is more or less fine as it is, though it might have some individual aspects that could potentially and/or not urgently need reining in.
[Broken] Has no downsides — The weapon outperforms most alternatives within its category. Taking it over its non-legendary counterpart or its alternatives is a straight upgrade.
Arguably we could have gone with a 4-point scale, ditching the fourth option and having it go "Straight Downgrade" to "Underpowered" to "Balanced" to "Straight Upgrade" — but that would leave us with a scale that has 3 "negative" options and 1 positive. I've asked people in the unofficial APB Discord and there weren't any objections to these answers. I'm sure the next survey could be improved in some ways, one of which would be the answers made available to people who engage in the survey.
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HELLO LO
in General Discussion Archive
Posted
That would make sense, but I don't think missions are tied to map areas (as in, On the Fence only being able to be started and take place within a specific neighborhood); this would mean that learning one mission would still require the knowledge of all possible objective spawnpoints, not just a specific set of them that is correct every single time. Feel free to correct me on that one if I'm wrong.
Either way, this only proves OP right on the assumption that some people with thousands of hours in the game (a small subset of veterans) will have individual spots memorized. The method of resolving this issue is adding more possible map items for mission interactions, not changing mission names and descriptions as OP suggested.